Thank God For Westword And Alan Prendergast

Can someone please please copy and paste it as I can never get the page to load, I always get 'cannot find server/page cannot be displayed. :banghead: ..I tried for an hour this am and I get the same now :gomods: ...

 

Pucker Up

And the award for the worst Colorado performance on national TV goes to…


The most sluttish national TV performance of the week in a contrived Colorado soap opera wasn't provided by a member of The Real World: Denver. No, it was on a piece of shamelessness concerning the JonBenét Ramsey murder that aired on the once-proud "news" program 48 Hours. On Saturday night, pliable host Erin Moriarty showed she was willing to jump on any available bandwagon -- as long as it got her an exclusive interview with JonBenét's dad, John "Media Victim" Ramsey.

With John's help, as well as that of strange bedfellows CU journalism professor Michael Tracey, ex-prosecutor Trip DeMuth and staunch "intruder theorist" Lou Smit, Moriarty managed to present the embarrassing catch-and-release of bogus confessor John Mark Karr last August as a triumph of super-sleuthing over the forces of evil. Never mind that Karr's DNA failed to match evidence found at the crime scene (and that prosecutors have said the mystery DNA may not be the killer's at all). The program advanced the jaw-dropping notion that Karr, who wasn't even in Boulder at the time, might have been an "accomplice" to the real killer -- a variant on the conspiracy theory pushed by Tracey in a wildly misleading 2004 documentary that focused on two other implausible suspects ("Made for Each Other," October 12).

The official source for this claptrap? A Homeland Security cop, who declared that the Karr investigation "will remain open until evidence shows that he is not part of the conspiracy." Hmm. Maybe it was the work of a Small Foreign Faction after all.

But it was Tracey's fingerprints, not Karr's, that were all over this show. Tracey, it turns out, has been a consultant to CBS for the past eight years -- further complicating his hopelessly conflicted roles as pontificating scholar, media critic, police informant, crusading documentarian and chief Ramsey suck-up and defender. Moriarty's report omitted any mention of the info Tracey supplied Karr during their four-year correspondence that helped fill in some of the gaping holes in his "confession." It also neglected to report on the dozens of suspects investigated and cleared by the Boulder police over the years (including many served up by John Ramsey himself), giving the impression that the Ramseys had been unfairly singled out for scrutiny, just because they happened to be in the house when their daughter was killed.

Like Tracey's own shabby documentaries, 48 Hours presented Smit's intruder speculations as fact while muddling facts into oblivion. Even Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy, who seems to believe in the intruder theory as much as anyone, hasn't gone so far as to officially "clear" the Ramseys simply because the phantom DNA doesn't match theirs. That, apparently, is the job of fearless consultants and their all-too-eager shills at CBS.

 

Thank you so much RR

I think I luv Alan :luv: :luv: :luv:

 

Linked to it on my blog, since truth can never be widely distributed enough. Alan sure does know how to turn a phrase. "Pliable host Erin Moriarty," indeed.

People should be reminded that this show appeared on the same CBS network that came in for a deserved whipping during the Dan Rather / Microsoft Word memo scandal. Dan is out of a high-profile job because of that scandal and now works for a network with a tiny audience. Katie Couric is not bringing credibility back to the role of CBS news authority. Erin Moriarty and her producers are hardly the cream of the crop that Dan left behind and Katie draws upon for hard-hitting journalism.

I also note that in the ratings for that night, the Ramsey lovefest came in sixth, behind college football, an episode of "Cops," a repeat of "CSI," a repeat of "Law & Order: SVU," another episode of "Cops," and an episode of "America's Most Wanted." When two repeats beat out supposedly new evidence in the Ramsey case that the same audience for Cops, CSI, L&O and AMW should theoretically flock to, you can see that the audience is smart enough to realize from the promos that they were going to be fed junk and stayed away from it accordingly.

 

Which is WHY I didn't bother to watch PLIABLE, GULLIBLE Erin Moriaty in the first place!

The program advanced the jaw-dropping notion that Karr, who wasn't even in Boulder at the time, might have been an "accomplice" to the real killer -- a variant on the conspiracy theory pushed by Tracey in a wildly misleading 2004 documentary that focused on two other implausible suspects ("Made for Each Other," October 12).

Yep....MAKE THE BOOK DEAL FOR TRACEY!!!!! HE NEEDS THE MILLIONS TO LIVE ON!

And of course this is John Ramsey's latest "We're cleared!" Campaign when he is NOT cleared as of Boulder DA's comment last summer.

Hooray for Alan Pendergast....a voice or reason in a sea of muddled lies......

 

Prendergast nailed it again. Now, the real world might know that Tracey been sucking off of CBS for years in addition to his salary at CU. Can't he be fired or something. Wait, I forgot, his review came up during the Karr fiasco.

Why is it that we are the only people besides Alan that are questioning why Homeland Security is involved? JMK wasn't there except in his sick dreams, and his accomplice only exists in his mind. But, yet Homeland Security is still involved? Shouldn't they be worried about bin Laden or something like that? Or is it just me?

 

Death, taxes and conspiracy theorists; the three sure things in life.

 

I'm glad Alan followed through and once again, he understands this right on.


By the way, I just picked up a book that Alan wrote a few years back. It's called The Poison Tree and is about a domestic homicide case.

Why Nut-- where is your blog?

 

You got it Paradox!

 

http://whynut.blogspot.com/

It is not yet what I want it to be, but it will get there as my mind wraps around how to organize the stuff I want to put on it.

 

Can anyone provide Alan's email address as I cannot access the site?

 

Oh I see. Karr was an accessory to the murder now. Not the murderer.

 

It's not just you. This has twisted me, it's probably the thing that sent me over the top of the fence into conspiracy land. Those are cartoon cops playing detective on your nickel. Just a random musing, but why are they on TELEVISION discussing and ONGOING HOMELAND SECURITY CASE? Because they are not real, the case is not real, and there's not going to be a real resolution.

 

alan.prendergast@westword.com

 

BAM!

Alan nailed it and didn't mince words! I love it. In just five paragraphs, Alan told the truth about the Ramsey case, Michael Tracey, Mary Lacy, Lou Smit, Trip DeMuth, 48 Hours, Erin Moriarity, CBS and the jojo with "Homeland Security."

Anyone else want to join the Alan Prendergast Fan Club? The line starts here.

 

Thanks for that

I hope he follows up on this!

I wonder if he is aware of the Midyette case?

 

Yep, that's the story today BobC! BTW, how are you?

 

Oh, if I could only write like this! Succinct. Pithy. Scathing description. Be still, my heart.

Well, it's nice to know that some in the Colorado press have managed to keep their eyes on the prize. Thank you so much, Prendergast, for keeping your balls firmly intact. Take a bow. :takeabow:

 

Well, DUH! That's the now standard fall-back position of the RamShills, once the DNA doesn't match.

Works every time...if your IQ is somewhere in the neighborhood of a low-grade fever.